Theatre Of Dreams
by Red Hot Holly Berries
Summary: Arthur's past with his brothers is full of hatred,but he can't help but crave a soft touch from Scotland,a compliment from Ireland,a hug from Wales.Little does he know he'll get all he wishes for only when he needs it most...And it'll change him forever.
1. The Curtains Are Drawn

**Theatre Of Dreams**

Prologue: The Curtains Are Drawn

* * *

_Everything is dark. A soft darkness wrapping everything, a shiny silence dilating into nothingness._

_A light coming from above is suddenly turned on, revealing a broad wooden stage and thick blood-red velvet curtains._

_A rustle strokes the immobility of the scene and from behind the curtains someone appears wrapped in a green cloak._

"Huh? Oh, audience!"

_The feminine silhouette says it with curiosity in her voice, her pale-green eyes glowing._

"Very well. Welcome to my Theatre Of Dreams!" s_he says, bowing into a fluid curtsey, and extends her arms in a wide gesture similar to a dancer's; and the curtains behind her are drawn with a longing sigh, disclosing an empty stage._

"Who am I? I am nobody. I am a God. I am only a dream,"_ the creature says as she stands up, bowing her face a bit sideward and exposing to the single spotlight the line of her thin eyebrows, her high cheekbone, and her lips curled in a half-smile. _

"I am the one who'll show you a play. A performance, if you will, of souls who on Earth have known both Paradise and Hell alike, chasing after each other, longing endlessly for each other."

_The young creature turns abruptly, making her long curly copper-red hair whirl in the air. _

"Come with me..."

_The little bells tied to her ankles chime gently as her bare feet lightly touch the dark wooden floorboards, only to suddenly fall silent when the fairy stops in front of a locked double door in the background of the stage._

"Behind this door there's a lonely soul, torn apart between past and present. Whether its Dreams will be Shattered or Fulfilled... You'll see."

_A light push, and the double door opens, revealing a room with stone walls lit up by candles, the floor of which is covered by a rug of soft green grass._

_The Narrator crosses the threshold, sure she's being followed, and she stops beside the person crouched near a stone pool dug in the ground._

"He suffers," _the guide says sadly, taking a little branch of holly off from behind one of her pointed ears and setting it in the man's blonde hair, without him noticing it or averting his gaze from the depths of the water he stares at._

"Look..." _the Sidhe says, leaning over the young one's shoulder and pointing at the surface._

~.::*::.~ ~.::*::.~ ~.::*::.~ ~.::*::.~ ~.::*::.~

_A boy runs in zigzags in the forest like a chased deer, panting heavily, cheeks red from the effort and eyes watery with fear._

_He doesn't seem to know where he's going; his only purpose is to run as far as he possibly can, his mind fogged by prey's terror._

_He hears a threatening hiss behind him, but even recognizing it he doesn't have the time to react: the dagger drives itself into his right calf, making him fall and hit the ground with a pained scream._

_Quick, he grabs the cutlass and draws it out, gritting his teeth as he tries not to let loose another cry, but it's useless: thanks to that (dirty) trick, his pursuer has already caught up with him even before he can try to stand up._

_The two stay still like that, face to face: one on the ground, his messy blonde hair soiled with clay and blood, as much as his clothes are; the other with a giant battle axe by his side, his short blood-red hair similar to a demon's inflamed halo._

_The only thing they have in common is a pair of deep green eyes: one pair full of fear and rage, the other full of sadistic pleasure and resolve._

"_Wher're ye runnin' t', lil brother?" the redhead asks mockingly, looking at him from above thanks to his higher stature, as he clearly is many years older than the other._

"_Fuck you, Alba." the blonde says venomously as he stands up slowly, the dagger dirtied with his blood now in his hand._

"_Ye shouldnae talk like tha' t' someone who's older than ye, Albion." Every pretence of fake cordiality slips away from Alba's face, leaving place for a cruel smirk, and he raises his axe above his head with both hands, swinging it back down in a powerful strike at the younger boy._

_He manages to avoid the strike by moving aside at the last moment, trying not to burden his injured leg, and while he does so, he throws a desperate magical counter-attack._

_Even if Albion knows his older brother's both physical and magical endurance is frightening, an expression of astonishment appears on his face when he sees that his attack does not even have the slightest effect. _

"_Surprised, eh? Look at this beauty I 'ad th' Fae do fer me..." Alba says maliciously, noticing his surprise and lifting his weapon for another strike, and only then Albion notices, in anguish, the magical runes of protection carved deep into the metal._

_He manages to avoid also this swing, but his injured leg betrays him at the worst possible moment making him stumble and giving the redhead the chance of a full back-hit right in his lower abdomen, throwing him backwards._

_He lands on his back, and Alba is immediately towering over him, hitting him cruelly with the handle of his axe: there's no raving in his movements, which are instead slow and well-thought. Each one made to make him suffer most, to let Albion see them coming one after the other and realize he can't do a thing to stop it._

_Many times the younger one tries to use his magic, obtaining the same failure each time, and he tries in vain to cover his face with his hands and roll away, but his brother is always there to stop him._

_Hit at the ribcage. Crack. Some smashed ribs._

_Hit to the right shoulder. Crack. Fractured collarbone._

_Hit with the flat part of the axe at his side. Crack. Broken hip._

_Hit with the edge of the axe at his right leg. Crack. Destroyed shinbone and fibula._

_Alba stops, admiring his handiwork, and he bends over his bleeding brother, gloating._

"_Did ye learn yer lesson, little brother? Ye wouldnae put a spoke in me wheel again when I decide t' take away yer lands, would ye?"_

_But the pain seems to have pushed Albion past the threshold of his sanity: reduced to less than an animal, his helpless anger demands that he at least takes his tormentor in the grave with him, so the blonde resorts to the dagger he still holds in his hand, and attempts a strike towards the other's neck. _

_Even catching him by surprise, suddenly his remaining strength leaves him, so instead of tearing Alba's throat open, he only manages to inflict a painful but superficial wound on his cheek and shoulder._

"_Fuck you," he pants heavily, his bloodied lips stretched in a skull-grin, and he understands his life is forfeit when he sees his brother's eyes darkening until they seem to be almost completely black._

"_Ye still 'ave t' learn 'bout th' respect ye owe me, I see," he says, and with a bolt-like move he snatches the knife from Albion's motionless hand, only to drive it into his palm, piercing it and plunging in into the ground._

_A scream burns the blonde's throat like fire but he soon finds himself without his voice while hot tears smear his face and Alba proceeds with beating him to a bloody pulp in his fury._

_A foot is set on his elbow, pressing until the sharp sound of the bone cracking is heard and the broken tips pierce muscles and skin; powerful kicks hit him where the axe had raged over him, while other strikes get to his chest and stomach, almost smashing his internal organs. _

"_Ye're weak. Ye're pathetic, and they say ye're me brother! Grovel on th' ground like th' worm ye are!" Another kick knocks him over on his belly, the arm nailed to the ground horribly bent under him, and again a strike falls over his back, breaking his spine._

_A single "crack" is heard, and the blonde suddenly loses sensibility from his waist down, maybe even silently thanking his brother for that almost charitable act in his mind, although it is still fogged with the pain he feels._

"_Stop, Alba. Stop, or I'll kill you." A new voice, trembling with rage, orders this as the redhead feels something hard and sharp pressing against his nape._

"_Did ye come t' save this worthless waste o' nature, Cymru?"_

_The young newcomer, identical to Albion, strings his bow, a creaking sound coming from it, and keeps the arrow firmly pointed at his older brother's head._

"_Don't give me another reason to do it, you don't know how much I'd love to. Drop the axe!" He orders, trembling from the obvious barely held back desire of avenging his twin right there and then._

"_Ye cannae really kill me, ye kno'," Alba says with a bored tone, but drops his axe._

"_No, but if you found yourself with an arrow in your head, your body would take weeks to regain even the slightest signs of life, and it'd hurt like hell. So now, walk away without turning back. Don't try any tricks: you know well how fast I am with a bow."_

_Alba casts a glance at the destroyed figure of Albion and smirks, his thoughts clear: he got what he wanted, so he does what Cymru told him and strides away from the blood-soaked grass, looking as if he is not in the least bit bothered by the arrow that is still pointed at his head and disappears among the trees with a barking laugh._

_Cymru waits for a moment to be sure that the older one is really gone, and then he rushes to his twin's side._

_He takes the dagger from his hand and gently turns Albion on his back, immediately realizing that the other is suffering way too much to hear him: he puts the blade in his belt, then slips an arm behind the other's broken back and the other under his knees, lifting him without effort._

_Cymru makes a bitter grimace when he feels how his brother is slack like a ragdoll, but he holds him close to his chest and walks away, in the opposite direction to the one Alba chose._

~.::*::.~ ~.::*::.~ ~.::*::.~ ~.::*::.~ ~.::*::.~

Arthur clenches his fists and grits his teeth.

Sometimes he wonders why the hell he uses the enchanted well to see his past, but something inside him knows that it's important.

By seeing himself fight, win and lose, as well as laugh and cry, he understands that life is all a game filled with bets and wild gambles. Although it's painful, he knows that defeats can teach as much as victories... Not that that could stop him from feeling a sullen pleasure at the thought of that, less than a thousand years after that event, he had managed to pay his brother Scotland back and reduce his lands up north to nothing more than an English colony.

Arthur growls as his slow and tiring recovery plays upon the water surface, and he feels a little guilty about arising against Wales, who stayed beside him during that painful time, helping him out and supporting him.

He remembers how his first conquer had been his younger brother's lands, and how not even their twin bonding could prevent war from sowing in their heart seeds of that dreadful hatred too often nations feel for each other.

But what about... Love? Could they feel love?

~.::*::.~ ~.::*::.~ ~.::*::.~ ~.::*::.~ ~.::*::.~

"Everyone have secrets that cannot be revealed even to themselves," _the Narrator says, watching the tormented youngling kneel beside her with sadness in her eyes._

"His heart has been wounded more times than you can ever imagine. You know what? He is suffering even now, silently, far from everyone else."

_Brushing her red hair aside, the green fairy gently plants a kiss on the man's blonde hair, and once again he doesn't seem to notice._

"He doesn't have the strength to admit it even to himself, but even if he knows that he is loved, inside him he wonders why he is not able to love back."

_The creature raises her arms, making the wide sleeves of her green vest flutter, and small lights appear around her._

"It is time for him to know that he can love."

_And without warning, the Guide pushes the young man, making him fall into the water with a gasp of surprise._

"Let us move away now, and leave the stage for the other actors in this play."

_A naughty and almost malicious smile seems to light up her face, and then everything slowly fades to black._

_Let the show... begin._

* * *

Ok, some notes:

Sidhe: a powerful human-like fairy from the Faerie realm (what we mean nowadays by "elf")

Fae: Common name for "faerie folk", indicating the whole people of fairies and mythical creatures living in the world of Faerie.

Albion: ancient name for "England".

Alba: Gaelic name for "Scotland", which has been used by the Scottish since ancient times.

Cymru: Gaelic name for "Wales", which has been used by the Welsh since ancient times.

How much ancient... Well, you'll discover that soon!

Narrator: Do you want to steal my job? *raises eyebrow*

Me: Hey, you! Come back in the story! Shoo! Shoo! +makes gesture as to chase a cat away*

Narrator: it's your fault for giving me the power to do everything I want. And now I want to stay here to cheer the readers. u_u

Me: ... Oh, yeah, that's right. *thinks* well, would you like to give some hints to make the readers come back and read more? *deep study of marketing*+

Narrator: A chance to make mysterious hints to the story? Oh, spoiler, spoiler, spoiler! *delighted cry*

Me: Spoiler! Eh, don't exaggerate, poor excuses for a fairy! It took moths for me to thing about the plot, now you can't give it away like this! è_è

Narrator: Liar. You had the idea not even two days ago. ù_ù

Me: ... Let's skip that, will you? ^^' So, this hint? *sweatdrops*

Narrator: Hummm... *thinks about it* Ok! Number one: Britaincest. Number two: Britaincest. Number three...

Me: Heya! Don't fall into "Incest-maniac" mode! You'll scare the readers off! .

Narrator: ... You created me. Hence, you're the perverted one. U_U

Me: ... Point. Ok then, people! *smiles to the audience* Stay with us and you'll have the chance to see many Britaincest! Even though I won't tell you in which of his brothers' bed he'll end up... *grins evilly*

Narrator: I will! It's... *author shuts her up*

Me: So we'll see again in next chapter, guys! *carts away the struggling Narrator* And maybe I'll tell you who this bothersome fairy really is!


	2. First Act

Chapter 1: First Act

* * *

You sure as hell couldn't say that Wales hadn't kept himself healthy: even if he was well past two thousand years old, he didn't look a day older than twenty three.

His semi-immortality was a side advantage of being a freak of nature, even if, as everything in this world, it didn't come without a number of bad sides.

He hadn't lived for more than two thousand years in peace and tranquillity: but the tiredness coming from that weight, such a weight that no God would burden a mortal with, could be seen only from time to time as a melancholic shade in his deep green eyes.

The face of Wales' personification, on the other hand, was relaxed and calm as he sat on the red sweatshirt of his national rugby team (an original one, coming straight from the first foundation of the team), folded like a pillow to isolate himself from the wet grass under him, appearing completely at peace with himself and the world.

Wales was lazing around on the borders of a fenced grassland in his countryside, sitting with his back against the paling, enjoying the unusually warm autumn sun; a pencil stuck behind his ear and a drawing block on his crossed legs, which sheets were covered in quick but careful sketches of the majestic Shire grazing just a few meters from him.

While he was waiting with the endless patience of an artist for the horse to turn around and allow him to draw the line of his strong neck, Wales stretched a hand backwards, touching the ground blindly in search for the red apples he had taken with him to catch the horse's attention, which he had picked up the same morning from the trees near his home.

He found one, admired for a moment the twisting white veins on its skin, and then bit down on it, enjoying its crispness under his teeth and its mealy sweetness, making sure that the juice would not drip on the sheets.

In the past, people who had seen him in a moment of particularly impressive anger told him how he looked like his twin England, but Wales knew better than that. Those people had never seen said England on a rampage because of unrestrained hate or going almost berserk in battle as he did.

No, Wales had never reached his twin's negative record tracks. Better, he had never been forced to do so: deciding their own character was rarely up to his God-forgotten race, and while the English Empire had needed a personification endowed with such charisma and such ferocity to be a match for the whole world, the little principality of Wales had never had the same need.

But Wales had also been given the chance to see his twin in his rare moments of peace: relaxed, happy, able to enjoy the little wonders of the world like a child would.

That was why Wales liked to think that, even if he had never told England so, it was in those moments of untroubled serenity that the two looked more alike.

A similarity that went farther than simple looks, which alone was enough for him to come to terms with the fact that he was often mistaken for England; they looked about the same age, they were the same height, had the same slender build and the same features with high cheekbone and slim jaw, the same thin lips, bushy eyebrows and large green eyes. The only real difference was the hair - even if Wales' was as unruly and rebellious as England's, the former's blonde leant more towards brown than ash.

Deep down, they were brothers no matter what, as nations and as people: even if from time to time they fought furiously, they had never been able to hold a grudge for very long. In one way or another, they always returned to sitting next to each other, laughing at their annoying older brothers or enjoying their reciprocal company in a knowing silence.

A sudden movement of the horse, until then completely still, shook him from his thoughts.

The big Shire had stopped grazing and his muzzle was pointing towards his right, the posture of his neck and back showing off a certain curiosity.

Wales followed the horse's stare, and what he saw made him stand up quickly and sink into a deep bow to greet the creature that came running with graceful steps along the fence towards him.

"Pleased to meet you, gracious daughter of the Sidhes," Wales said with calm and polite voice, rising from his bow as the red-haired fairy stopped in front of him, apparently having found what she was looking for.

"The pleasure is all mine, Cymru," the Fae girl said with a nod, pushing a rebellious strand of hair behind her pointed ear. "And I'm not saying this out of empty courtesy; I do really need your help."

Used to the usually noble-like and distant manners of the Sidhes, Wales was shocked by her straightforwardness, but he found an answer to it in the urgency he could read in her green eyes.

But around Sidhes, a border of safety must always be kept.

"I may do what is in my power to help you, my lady, if you gave me a name to call you with."

Usually, fairy creatures didn't go around harming his kind, but there were some rules to follow, with no exceptions: never give them your name if you're not getting anything in exchange, never lie to them, never be in debt to them, never accept an agreement without previously listing the rules.

The fairy had shown she already knew his name, so he had proposed her an exchange to gain some equality: her name for the promise to help her, the promise carefully phrased to not make it binding.

"Narrator. I'm the Narrator," the green-clad spirit answered without any roundabout expressions, and Wales accepted the answer with a nod: even if that probably was not her real name, it was still a name she herself had given him, so it had the same power.

"So, what happened, my Narrator?" Something was not right, Wales could feel it. It wasn't only about the fairy's agitation, _there was something wrong..._

"It's about your brother England. He has had an accident with an insidious kind of magic and he's in danger."

"What?" the young man shouted, frenzied, only to stop dead still like an animal ready to strike. "What the fuck happened! No, wait, take me to him!"

"I wanted to ask exactly this from you," the Sidhe agreed, turning towards the endless field of clover on the other side of the fence and stomping on the ground with her bare foot, making the little bells tied to her ankle tinkle with force.

The metallic sound seemed to expand in the air until it became a bothersome pressure on Wales's eardrums but it stopped abruptly when a glowing circle appeared in the middle of the clover field.

"Go, Cymru. Help him." And so, without any thoughts of his sweet red apples or his drawings, Wales climbed over the fence with a feline-like leap and jumped in the middle of what he had recognized as a portal circle that fairy beings used to move between the world of the Faeries and the Earth.

The nation had just the time to turn around and cast a last glance at the strange Sidhe before the world started to distend and twist around him, but in the moment when his green eyes met hers, Wales saw something that seemed to be between detached pity and satisfaction.

A freezing terror drowned him when he realized he hadn't complied with his rules: the worry for his brother's safety prevented him from asking precisely where she was sending him. What...

But he didn't have the time to worry more than so, as in less than three heartbeats the circle had already taken him to his destination, which was a corridor with floor made of rough stone and walls covered in pale pine-wood, darkened with age.

Relieved to recognize the place, Wales ran for the only door on the end of the corridor, slamming it open with force and found himself in England's familiar chamber of divination.

The trembling light of the great number of candles gathered on some drawers aligned along the walls of that room without windows projected strange and deceptive reflections on the surface of the wide and deep stone-lined pool in the ground, outlining with inhuman but wonderful precision the silhouette of someone immersed in it.

Wales' breath was hissing, as if that burning and throbbing lump in his throat was preventing him from breathing, as he rushed to kneel beside the figure abandoned in the water, not even casting a glance to the astonishing rug of green grass that covered the ground.

His brother was lying motionless on the bottom of the pool, his head just above the surface thanks to the combined efforts of a few small fairies, whose butterfly-like wings had lost almost all their glow because of the labour of beating them to prevent the young man from drowning, and as soon as Wales took their place, they glided slowly on the grass, exhausted.

"What happened?" Wales asked with hoarse voice as he dove his hands and arms into the water and passed them under his twin's armpits to take him out, trying not to think of Goddess-only-knew what kind of magic he was getting soaked with.

"He lost consciousness when he fell in the water, as he was looking at his past in there. We wanted to take him out, but the magic prevented us from touching the water. So the Noble Sidhe went looking for help," a panting little fairy with red and blue wings explained from beside Wales' foot; the young man hugged his unconscious brother even tighter against his chest, not giving a damn about wetting his clothes.

And yet, even if under his hand Wales could feel England's chest rising and lowering at his breath rhythm, as well as he could feel him shivering because of his cold and soaked clothing; even if his senses were telling him that his brother was there with him, the tiniest nation of the United Kingdom felt that something wasn't right: the same feeling of _wrongness_ he had felt with the Sidhe was tormenting him like a premonition.

Since the candles provided too little light for him to search for the source of that with his eyes, and since he still didn't feel like bringing his twin out of there, Wales made him sit in his lap, his back pressed against his chest and his head bowed backwards to lie on his shoulder, and started to touch England's body with his hands, trusting his touch like a wolf would trust his smell.

The first thing he noticed was that England seemed to be too light, definitely lighter than he remembered. The second was, even if in that position it was hard to tell, that his brother was also smaller: surely more than Wales, which wasn't possible, as they were normally just as big as each other.

With his heart beating faster and faster, and his eyes stinging because of unshed tears, Wales' touch rose on England's chest, but when he got to his face, he hesitated, and his hand went past and trailed through his twin's hair, stroking it like he'd do with a cat to calm himself.

Unexpectedly, he found in his finger a branch of something that, ouch!, must have been a branch of holly, if the needle-like leaves were a trustable hint.

Wales put the holly in his pocket and then, finally, with the tip of his fingers he slowly outlined his brother's features that he could barely see: the tip of the chin, the line of the jaw, the hollow under the ear, the roundness of the cheek, the lid-covered eyes and the long eyelashes, the light hollow of the temples; and again the thin lips, the dimple over his upper lip, the lightly button-like tip of the nose, the straight line of the septum, the curved line of the superciliary arch and the bushy eyebrows, the low hairline.

It was like Wales remembered, but it was _wrong_. The line of the jaw should have been different, as so the cheeks and the tip of the nose. He couldn't say whether they should have been softer, straighter or whatever, but _they weren't right_.

What had happened to his twin? It was as if...

"Oh my Goddess... No, please, _no_..." Wales knew that for the Christians naming God's name in vain was a sin, and with certain bitterness he thought that way too often naming whatsoever God's name was indeed in vain.

The young made his brother's unconscious body slide in his arms, posed a kiss on his forehead and then stood up, but rather than a charming prince in the act of saving his princess, he looked more like a puppeteer trying not to break a precious doll of glass.

* * *

Author: Ooook, people! I'm back! And I have to say that I'm surprised by my own quickness is updating...

Narrator: You're nor the only one, beieve me. u_u

Author: Ow, here you are, you party pooper! I was just wondering whether you were going to honour me with your rojal presence...

Narrator: I have to say that, yes, I indeed decided to grace you with my witty remarks U_U *nonchalance*

Author:... I swear not even the awesome me knows whether she does that on purpose or it's natural for her... o.O Anyway! Reviwes, hun? You did really make my day!

Narrator: Yeah. So now, let me just say one thing: reviews are awesome. Are you awesome? *big smile*

Author: ... wow. That was great.

Narrator: took it from Tehri, you know. ù_ù

Author: ... ah, did you?


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